High Knoll - May 6 2024

Coquitlam Ranges, Coquitlam, British Columbia
172m

Damn, it's been 2 weeks since my last peak! Honestly, by this day, it had felt like longer. My health, sadly, did not stay improving after I got out of the hospital and bagged Tszil Mountain, and the following couple weeks had been rough enough to keep me stuck at home. That all being said, though, I had an appointment in Coquitlam on this Monday, so I wanted to get SOMETHING done if I was physically able, and had to leave the house anyways.

After attending some morning meetings and attempting to get done with my now-even-longer morning routine, I was feeling alright, so I hopped into the car and drove down to Coquitlam. I was originally hoping to do High Knoll and Mount Burke in one hike, using the North Trail for High Knoll and the Line Trail for Burke, but upon trying to turn off of Quarry Road towards the Line Trail, I found a rather imposing bit of signage indicating it was private property and that trespassers would be prosecuted, etc. It was also a gun range, which made me not-so-inclined to engage in any sort of tressbagging, so I had to dash those plans. Instead, I parked at the North Trail's head, and figured I'd just do the two peaks independently, since the next trailhead that would get me to Burke would be substantially south.

After tossing my trail runners on, I got moving at 12:10pm, with my appointment about 15 minutes away at 2:15pm, so plenty of time (though I actually thought it was at 2:30pm, so I had a bit less time than I thought 😅). The trail turned out to be a wide, graded gravel trail, so I tried my hand at jogging a bit. For whatever reason, my bad ankle was particularly mad at me on this day, so I didn't jog with great swiftness, but I managed to get to the point where the trail turns into a "regular hiking trail" in about 5 minutes, pictured hastily below.

From there, I took about 10 minutes to gain up to the 120m pass where the Quarry Trail descends slightly, and curves back towards the marsh on the south side (and turns back into gravel). I, however, forked after only a few steps, up towards the summit.

From the junction, it took just over 10 minutes to get all the way to the top. The trail was more of the same, with a couple fenced areas, and one section with rock stairs to make things pretty breezy. Once I got close to the top, I could see the summit block from below, though it was still impossible to know if this was the true summit or not. The trail does go there, though, so no need to get eager and shortcut, following the trail will save the ecosystem and get you where you need to be.

A couple minutes later, I got to a point where the trail curved to the left hard, leading up towards the highest of a few bumps, which conveniently did appear to be the one you could see from below. I followed that to the summit plateau, where I saw that the high point was actually off to climber's right just as you crested onto the plateau. So, I dipped off and over a log, took a few steps, and discovered that I was not as alone as I'd felt!

A couple fairly large bears had apparently also got the peakbagging bug on this Monday, and they also were seemingly more motivated, as they beat me to the top! I slowed my butt down, took only the first of the photos I was planning to take, cautiously got my feet to the high point, watching the bear's reactions to my steps as I got my spray ready, but thankfully they seemed content just watching me. After getting my peak, I dipped with haste, figuring they were there first, so they could enjoy the views on my behalf.

I warned one guy with a dog on their way up the summit trail of the bears, but apparently he had great faith in that dog, as he kept going. Hope that faith was well-founded. I had originally considered descending the gravel trail and maaaybe going for a long loop up Burke, and just accepting some FSR-walking, but since I had seen an old couple walking up behind me on the northern part of the Quarry Trail, I decided to go back the way I came so I could give them a heads-up about the bear, as I wasn't sure how prepared they were, and figured "in case they were not", I should let them know.

Before I started coming down, I had hopes of jogging down most of the trail to get some extra exercise in given the short trail, but my ankle was definitely not into that plan, so I instead just hiked out with a couple sections of "inspired stepping", perhaps. That resulted in a descent time basically as long as my ascent time, and a round-trip of about 41 minutes. But hey, I got a p100, got "something" for the first time in 2 weeks, and I didn't get mauled by bears, so I count that as a win!

With that done, on to the next half of the day, Mount Burke...

GPX Track + Map